32gb memory cards on amazon prime sale thing for 59.99 even. I kind of want to get one.
At that point you may as well just throw in the extra $20 and get the 64GB from Superufo for $80.
As someone who just in the last few weeks went from a 16gb to a 64gb...it is amazing. It's also a dangerous pathway to spending more money. I have so much room I keep buying things!
I can't fit my entire Vita library on my 32GB card, but there's enough content to keep me busy for months without having to swap anything out. I think with a 64GB card, I wouldn't even be able to decide on a game with that many options always in my face.
Ended up getting the PS4 version of God Eater: Res because I didn't have the space on my memory cart to put it...
...and MAN, is that a bad tutorial. It's literally telling you incorrect information about how to do things. There was a bit at the start about how it'd only be "correct" on the default settings, but I WAS on them, and they were nowhere near right. Can really tell this wasn't the lead platform for this game.
Hm? That shouldn't be the case from what I played of the JP version. Maybe Bamco forgot to hit the flag to change the directions for the PS4 version there?
Every hunting game has 'hitsparks' indicating if you're doing more or less damage. Monhun has the big flashes/blood splatter, soul sacrifice had them usually literally busting into flames if they were weak to fire, etc.
Most spend too much time on tutoring, really. Monhun even has an entire arena section that teaches each weapon and such. Each new in stage thing has a counter girl or something babbling on for several minutes.
Soul sacrifice had some pretty good tutorials in Delta, I feel, but I don't really recall if the original had the same one. Or the ability to drop in and test stuff out.
Every hunting game has 'hitsparks' indicating if you're doing more or less damage. Monhun has the big flashes/blood splatter, soul sacrifice had them usually literally busting into flames if they were weak to fire, etc.
Most spend too much time on tutoring, really. Monhun even has an entire arena section that teaches each weapon and such. Each new in stage thing has a counter girl or something babbling on for several minutes.
Soul sacrifice had some pretty good tutorials in Delta, I feel, but I don't really recall if the original had the same one. Or the ability to drop in and test stuff out.
I completely missed the flashes/splatter size in monster hunter. I'll definitely have to watch for that!
Would still like something like the MH Arena section, but where you have to perform specific weapon combos in order to walk you through what does/not work. I'm specifically thinking about how I didn't have any idea that I could super cancel on a charge blade in order to store phials as guard+ and dmg+ until I saw it in a gaijinhunter video. Something that completely changed how I played the weapon.
edit: really what it boils down to is I am in love with the core gameplay of hunting games, but am at a loss as to how to how to move past the entry level for any given weapon style/combo without some pretty significant handholding
FreiA French Prometheus UnboundDeadwoodRegistered Userregular
Anyone playing Grand Kingdom? It looks right up my alley. I'm trying to hold off and save it for my next trip so i'll have a new handheld to play but my will is wavering.
Anyone playing Grand Kingdom? It looks right up my alley. I'm trying to hold off and save it for my next trip so i'll have a new handheld to play but my will is wavering.
It's very much a mobile game without the microtransactions. It's not going to be for everyone and you will run out of things to do fairly quickly without the online component. There is a "story" mode, but it's entirely detached from the actual conflict the game is centered on, which is an endless war between four nations.
Every hunting game has 'hitsparks' indicating if you're doing more or less damage. Monhun has the big flashes/blood splatter, soul sacrifice had them usually literally busting into flames if they were weak to fire, etc.
Most spend too much time on tutoring, really. Monhun even has an entire arena section that teaches each weapon and such. Each new in stage thing has a counter girl or something babbling on for several minutes.
Soul sacrifice had some pretty good tutorials in Delta, I feel, but I don't really recall if the original had the same one. Or the ability to drop in and test stuff out.
I completely missed the flashes/splatter size in monster hunter. I'll definitely have to watch for that!
Would still like something like the MH Arena section, but where you have to perform specific weapon combos in order to walk you through what does/not work. I'm specifically thinking about how I didn't have any idea that I could super cancel on a charge blade in order to store phials as guard+ and dmg+ until I saw it in a gaijinhunter video. Something that completely changed how I played the weapon.
edit: really what it boils down to is I am in love with the core gameplay of hunting games, but am at a loss as to how to how to move past the entry level for any given weapon style/combo without some pretty significant handholding
I dunno about GE, maybe Lovely can point you in the right direction, but MonHun has the Gaijinhunter videos detailing all the weapons and their move sets and quirks. Which holds up between the various games in most instances.
Barring that play online with some people who main weapons you might like and just hang back and watch them. You can learn a lot just from that. Even if you don't particularly understand everything.
You can even set it up so it you ping or something during a fight they can remember what they were doing and you can later ask about something specific. These games are definitely much better if you make it a bit of a social experience. I've spent a few nights with various people in monhun or soul sacrifice teaching people stuff.
Re: God Eater and some details about combat, this was originally posted by SkyOdin on neogaf:
Spoilered for length.
Okay, since it seems to be confusing some people, I will do my best to explain Devouring, Burst, and Aragami Bullets.
Now, the Devour attacks are a key part of God Eater combat, and they have two key uses. When you Devour the remains of a defeated Aragami, you get three random items from that monster's loot table. This is similar to carving in Monster Hunter, for those people who are familiar with that game. In short, you should always devour every dead opponent once. This is pretty easy to do, since a quick Devour will work just as well as a full-length Devour.
Now, the real complexity is in using Devour as part of combat. When you land a Devour on an Aragami that is still alive, you get two key advantages: you enter Burst mode, and you gain one or more Aragami Bullets.
Burst mode is a huge advantage. Most importantly, it boosts your damage. Being in Burst mode also gives you other new options, such as the ability to double jump. It also enables all equipped skills that have a "B" marker in the skill list, and it also causes your OP gauge (your ammo) to slowly regenerate. To make it simple: you want to be in Burst mode as much as possible. You can tell that you are in Burst mode by the yellow glow that surrounds your character, and the gauge that appears at the bottom of the screen. When that gauge empties, you will exit Burst mode.
Now, this is where the difference between different types of Devour come into play. The charged Devour will give you a full Burst gauge if it hits. On the other hand, a quick Devour will give a third to one-half of a Burst gauge. At the most basic level, they give the same effect, but just give you a different duration. However, if you Devour an opponent while still in Burst mode, you can refill the Burst gauge and extend its duration.
Now, on to Aragami Bullets. When you Devour a living Aragami, you gain Aragami Bullets in addition to the Burst effect. An Aragami Bullet is a type of special bullet that doesn't use your OP gauge, but instead has finite ammo. A charged devour will give you three bullets, while a quick Devour will give you fewer (usually just one). On their own, Aragami Bullets are not that powerful. However, you can use R1+Triangle while in gun mode to fire the Aragami Bullet at your allies. Look for an ally that is marked with a triangular lock-on marker. Aragami Bullets fired with R1+Triangle will home in on that character, and it connects, that ally will gain a "Link Burst".
When an Aragami Bullet is passed to an ally, that ally's Burst gauge is immediately filled. That ally gains all of the normal effects of being in Burst mode, even if they are a character like Sakuya or Kota who can't Devour to gain Burst normally. However, if a character who is already in Burst Mode is passed an Aragami Bullet, something special happens: they Burst levels up to a higher rank. So, they go from a basic level 1 Burst to a level 2 Burst, or from a level 2 Burst to a level 3 Burst. Higher levels of Burst increase all of the stat gains from a Burst. However, if someone in level 3 Burst lets their Burst gauge empty, they immediately drop all the way out of Burst mode and must restart the process of improving Bust level from the beginning. On the plus side, they can still refill their Burst gauge via Devour and receiving passed Aragami Bullets to maintain that level 3 Burst for as long as the team can keep it up.
There is a second benefit to receiving Link Burst: you gain a Condensed Aragami Bullet. Whenever an ally passes Aragami Bullets to you, they don't just disappear. Instead, they become Condensed Bullets. These appear on the UI as text under the Burst gauge, rather than in the ammo listing like normal Aragami Bullets. You can only store one, and it is fired by pressing R1 + Square while in Gun form. It will vanish and be lost if you are passed another Aragami Bullet or your Burst Guage runs out, so it is best to just fire it immediately. Functionally, they work just like normal Aragami Bullets, except they deal much more damage.
So, to summarize it all:
In Blade Form, use Devour by holding the triangle button or hitting R1 + Triangle to build up your Burst Gauge and acquire Aragami Bullets. Devour can only be performed in Blade form.
In Gun form, pass those bullets to allies by hitting R1 + Triangle to raise their Burst level, and fire condensed bullets with R1 + Square when allies pass them to you in order to deal a lot of damage. Both of these action can only be done in Gun form.
Burst benefits both forms equally, and you want to be in Burst as much as possible. Enter and sustain Burst by Devouring foes and receiving passed Aragami bullets.
As a side note, only other New type God Eaters armed with both a blade and gun can pass Aragami Bullets. However, AI allies are very eager to do so, which is exactly why ally New types like Alisa are very useful. You should bring them on missions as much as possible.
And, now that the simple part is done, I'll move on to Predator Styles. This only really starts to matter when the Predator Style menu is unlocked later in the game, but it adds a lot more options and greater depth to the system. There are five kinds of Devour attacks in the game: Charged, Quick, Combo, Step, and Jump. Charged Devours are performed by holding triangle, and are slow and strong. The other four are activated by hitting R1 + Triangle while standing, attacking, step-dashing, or jumping respectively. For each of these five types, you can independently equip different Devour attacks, which do different things. For example, you can change it so that the Step Devour will rocket you forward at high speed and your Combo Devour will pull you away from the enemy to safety. These different options also adjust how much a successful Devour will fill your Burst Gauge and how many Aragami Bullets you will acquire, so there are some trade-offs to be made.
The second main functionality of the Predator Style system is the Control Units. In the original PSP version of this game, Control Units were a normal piece of equipment, right alongside the main parts and the upgrade units. Back then, they provided skills that would activate during Burst. This time around they are similar, but function in a more complex way. Each of the five Devour attack slots can be fitted with its own Control Unit, which determines a special benefit that you will receive when you hit with that particular Devour attack. For example, if you attach the Blaze Resist+ Control Unit to your Quick Devour, then you will gain the Blaze Resist+ buff after hitting an enemy with the Quick Devour attack.
This buff will last until your Burst gauge empties, and it won't stack with itself. However, it will stack with the buffs provided by other equipped Control Units. So, if you hit with a Quick Devour armed with Blaze Resist+, and then follow that up with a Step Devour equipped with Spark Resist+, you will benefit from both Blaze Resist+ and Spark resist+ until your Burst Gauge empties. You can track these by the small colored lines just above the righthand end of the Burst gauge. Each colored line indicates a buff from a different Devour attack (the same colors displayed next to the Devour attacks in the Predator Style menu). In other words, you want to arm each Devour with a different Control Unit, and then hit the enemy with all of your different Devour attacks to stack up a wide range of buffs. By keeping your Burst going, you can keep these buffs up as long as needed, but you will lose them all and have to restart from the beginning if the Burst Gauge empties.
There are also a few Control Units that behave a bit differently. For example, the first two available to you are attack buffs (one for Melee and and one for Ranged attacks), but rather than provide a constant buff, they only last until your next attack. Both the effect and the colored line marking the effect will vanish after a single attack, but can be regained with another successful Devour. These are good if used in combination with particular set-ups (like Blast guns loaded with expensive bullets), but in general I find the long-term buffs to be better.
As a final note, each Devour attack has a certain rank of Control Unit that can be attached to it, ranging from 1 to 3. A slow and simple Devour like the Type One can equip level 3 Control Units, and thus can equip any of them, while some faster and fancier Devours can equip only a level 1 Control Units, and thus are restricted to using only the weakest Control Units. So, you might need to make a trade-off between the Devours you like and the buffs you want.
In the early parts of the game, just focus on trying to land devours and get into Burst mode as much as you can, and try to get into the habit of passing Aragami Bullets to your allies as you get them. Those two actions are really the most important parts of the system. A team where everyone is in Burst mode will do a lot more damage than one where no one is in Burst. I hope this overview is useful to someone, but if you have any other questions, feel free to ask.
The simple answer is: whenever you get interested in messing with it. You don't ever have to mess with Custom Bullets in order to get through the game, but if you want to get involved with the system, there are a lot of simple tweaks to the basic bullets you can make to improve their efficiency. The system exists to let you modify things to match your own playstyle and preferences. If the current bullets work for you, you might never need to mess with them. On the other hand, if you favor really close range shooting, you can always modify your basic assault-type bullets to have less range and thus cost less OP per shot. If you don't like aiming, you can make so simple homing bullets. It can be daunting to really figure out the system and get bullets to work right, so I wouldn't blame anyone for wanting to avoid all of that. However, I think that some of the most significant and useful stuff you can do with the system is the simplest stuff.
Anyone playing Grand Kingdom? It looks right up my alley. I'm trying to hold off and save it for my next trip so i'll have a new handheld to play but my will is wavering.
It's very much a mobile game without the microtransactions. It's not going to be for everyone and you will run out of things to do fairly quickly without the online component. There is a "story" mode, but it's entirely detached from the actual conflict the game is centered on, which is an endless war between four nations.
From the reviews it seems like a pure strategy game with lots going on and barebones as far as story and basically everything else goes. So long as the gameplay is good, that's all I really need in a handheld game. I don't know what you mean by it's a mobile game, though, since there's lots of mobile games with lots of depth and then lots of shitty ones as well.
Every hunting game has 'hitsparks' indicating if you're doing more or less damage. Monhun has the big flashes/blood splatter, soul sacrifice had them usually literally busting into flames if they were weak to fire, etc.
Most spend too much time on tutoring, really. Monhun even has an entire arena section that teaches each weapon and such. Each new in stage thing has a counter girl or something babbling on for several minutes.
Soul sacrifice had some pretty good tutorials in Delta, I feel, but I don't really recall if the original had the same one. Or the ability to drop in and test stuff out.
I completely missed the flashes/splatter size in monster hunter. I'll definitely have to watch for that!
Would still like something like the MH Arena section, but where you have to perform specific weapon combos in order to walk you through what does/not work. I'm specifically thinking about how I didn't have any idea that I could super cancel on a charge blade in order to store phials as guard+ and dmg+ until I saw it in a gaijinhunter video. Something that completely changed how I played the weapon.
edit: really what it boils down to is I am in love with the core gameplay of hunting games, but am at a loss as to how to how to move past the entry level for any given weapon style/combo without some pretty significant handholding
I dunno about GE, maybe Lovely can point you in the right direction, but MonHun has the Gaijinhunter videos detailing all the weapons and their move sets and quirks. Which holds up between the various games in most instances.
Barring that play online with some people who main weapons you might like and just hang back and watch them. You can learn a lot just from that. Even if you don't particularly understand everything.
You can even set it up so it you ping or something during a fight they can remember what they were doing and you can later ask about something specific. These games are definitely much better if you make it a bit of a social experience. I've spent a few nights with various people in monhun or soul sacrifice teaching people stuff.
Re: God Eater and some details about combat, this was originally posted by SkyOdin on neogaf:
Spoilered for length.
Okay, since it seems to be confusing some people, I will do my best to explain Devouring, Burst, and Aragami Bullets.
Now, the Devour attacks are a key part of God Eater combat, and they have two key uses. When you Devour the remains of a defeated Aragami, you get three random items from that monster's loot table. This is similar to carving in Monster Hunter, for those people who are familiar with that game. In short, you should always devour every dead opponent once. This is pretty easy to do, since a quick Devour will work just as well as a full-length Devour.
Now, the real complexity is in using Devour as part of combat. When you land a Devour on an Aragami that is still alive, you get two key advantages: you enter Burst mode, and you gain one or more Aragami Bullets.
Burst mode is a huge advantage. Most importantly, it boosts your damage. Being in Burst mode also gives you other new options, such as the ability to double jump. It also enables all equipped skills that have a "B" marker in the skill list, and it also causes your OP gauge (your ammo) to slowly regenerate. To make it simple: you want to be in Burst mode as much as possible. You can tell that you are in Burst mode by the yellow glow that surrounds your character, and the gauge that appears at the bottom of the screen. When that gauge empties, you will exit Burst mode.
Now, this is where the difference between different types of Devour come into play. The charged Devour will give you a full Burst gauge if it hits. On the other hand, a quick Devour will give a third to one-half of a Burst gauge. At the most basic level, they give the same effect, but just give you a different duration. However, if you Devour an opponent while still in Burst mode, you can refill the Burst gauge and extend its duration.
Now, on to Aragami Bullets. When you Devour a living Aragami, you gain Aragami Bullets in addition to the Burst effect. An Aragami Bullet is a type of special bullet that doesn't use your OP gauge, but instead has finite ammo. A charged devour will give you three bullets, while a quick Devour will give you fewer (usually just one). On their own, Aragami Bullets are not that powerful. However, you can use R1+Triangle while in gun mode to fire the Aragami Bullet at your allies. Look for an ally that is marked with a triangular lock-on marker. Aragami Bullets fired with R1+Triangle will home in on that character, and it connects, that ally will gain a "Link Burst".
When an Aragami Bullet is passed to an ally, that ally's Burst gauge is immediately filled. That ally gains all of the normal effects of being in Burst mode, even if they are a character like Sakuya or Kota who can't Devour to gain Burst normally. However, if a character who is already in Burst Mode is passed an Aragami Bullet, something special happens: they Burst levels up to a higher rank. So, they go from a basic level 1 Burst to a level 2 Burst, or from a level 2 Burst to a level 3 Burst. Higher levels of Burst increase all of the stat gains from a Burst. However, if someone in level 3 Burst lets their Burst gauge empty, they immediately drop all the way out of Burst mode and must restart the process of improving Bust level from the beginning. On the plus side, they can still refill their Burst gauge via Devour and receiving passed Aragami Bullets to maintain that level 3 Burst for as long as the team can keep it up.
There is a second benefit to receiving Link Burst: you gain a Condensed Aragami Bullet. Whenever an ally passes Aragami Bullets to you, they don't just disappear. Instead, they become Condensed Bullets. These appear on the UI as text under the Burst gauge, rather than in the ammo listing like normal Aragami Bullets. You can only store one, and it is fired by pressing R1 + Square while in Gun form. It will vanish and be lost if you are passed another Aragami Bullet or your Burst Guage runs out, so it is best to just fire it immediately. Functionally, they work just like normal Aragami Bullets, except they deal much more damage.
So, to summarize it all:
In Blade Form, use Devour by holding the triangle button or hitting R1 + Triangle to build up your Burst Gauge and acquire Aragami Bullets. Devour can only be performed in Blade form.
In Gun form, pass those bullets to allies by hitting R1 + Triangle to raise their Burst level, and fire condensed bullets with R1 + Square when allies pass them to you in order to deal a lot of damage. Both of these action can only be done in Gun form.
Burst benefits both forms equally, and you want to be in Burst as much as possible. Enter and sustain Burst by Devouring foes and receiving passed Aragami bullets.
As a side note, only other New type God Eaters armed with both a blade and gun can pass Aragami Bullets. However, AI allies are very eager to do so, which is exactly why ally New types like Alisa are very useful. You should bring them on missions as much as possible.
And, now that the simple part is done, I'll move on to Predator Styles. This only really starts to matter when the Predator Style menu is unlocked later in the game, but it adds a lot more options and greater depth to the system. There are five kinds of Devour attacks in the game: Charged, Quick, Combo, Step, and Jump. Charged Devours are performed by holding triangle, and are slow and strong. The other four are activated by hitting R1 + Triangle while standing, attacking, step-dashing, or jumping respectively. For each of these five types, you can independently equip different Devour attacks, which do different things. For example, you can change it so that the Step Devour will rocket you forward at high speed and your Combo Devour will pull you away from the enemy to safety. These different options also adjust how much a successful Devour will fill your Burst Gauge and how many Aragami Bullets you will acquire, so there are some trade-offs to be made.
The second main functionality of the Predator Style system is the Control Units. In the original PSP version of this game, Control Units were a normal piece of equipment, right alongside the main parts and the upgrade units. Back then, they provided skills that would activate during Burst. This time around they are similar, but function in a more complex way. Each of the five Devour attack slots can be fitted with its own Control Unit, which determines a special benefit that you will receive when you hit with that particular Devour attack. For example, if you attach the Blaze Resist+ Control Unit to your Quick Devour, then you will gain the Blaze Resist+ buff after hitting an enemy with the Quick Devour attack.
This buff will last until your Burst gauge empties, and it won't stack with itself. However, it will stack with the buffs provided by other equipped Control Units. So, if you hit with a Quick Devour armed with Blaze Resist+, and then follow that up with a Step Devour equipped with Spark Resist+, you will benefit from both Blaze Resist+ and Spark resist+ until your Burst Gauge empties. You can track these by the small colored lines just above the righthand end of the Burst gauge. Each colored line indicates a buff from a different Devour attack (the same colors displayed next to the Devour attacks in the Predator Style menu). In other words, you want to arm each Devour with a different Control Unit, and then hit the enemy with all of your different Devour attacks to stack up a wide range of buffs. By keeping your Burst going, you can keep these buffs up as long as needed, but you will lose them all and have to restart from the beginning if the Burst Gauge empties.
There are also a few Control Units that behave a bit differently. For example, the first two available to you are attack buffs (one for Melee and and one for Ranged attacks), but rather than provide a constant buff, they only last until your next attack. Both the effect and the colored line marking the effect will vanish after a single attack, but can be regained with another successful Devour. These are good if used in combination with particular set-ups (like Blast guns loaded with expensive bullets), but in general I find the long-term buffs to be better.
As a final note, each Devour attack has a certain rank of Control Unit that can be attached to it, ranging from 1 to 3. A slow and simple Devour like the Type One can equip level 3 Control Units, and thus can equip any of them, while some faster and fancier Devours can equip only a level 1 Control Units, and thus are restricted to using only the weakest Control Units. So, you might need to make a trade-off between the Devours you like and the buffs you want.
In the early parts of the game, just focus on trying to land devours and get into Burst mode as much as you can, and try to get into the habit of passing Aragami Bullets to your allies as you get them. Those two actions are really the most important parts of the system. A team where everyone is in Burst mode will do a lot more damage than one where no one is in Burst. I hope this overview is useful to someone, but if you have any other questions, feel free to ask.
The simple answer is: whenever you get interested in messing with it. You don't ever have to mess with Custom Bullets in order to get through the game, but if you want to get involved with the system, there are a lot of simple tweaks to the basic bullets you can make to improve their efficiency. The system exists to let you modify things to match your own playstyle and preferences. If the current bullets work for you, you might never need to mess with them. On the other hand, if you favor really close range shooting, you can always modify your basic assault-type bullets to have less range and thus cost less OP per shot. If you don't like aiming, you can make so simple homing bullets. It can be daunting to really figure out the system and get bullets to work right, so I wouldn't blame anyone for wanting to avoid all of that. However, I think that some of the most significant and useful stuff you can do with the system is the simplest stuff.
Re: God Eater and some details about combat, this was originally posted by SkyOdin on neogaf:
Spoilered for length.
Okay, since it seems to be confusing some people, I will do my best to explain Devouring, Burst, and Aragami Bullets.
Now, the Devour attacks are a key part of God Eater combat, and they have two key uses. When you Devour the remains of a defeated Aragami, you get three random items from that monster's loot table. This is similar to carving in Monster Hunter, for those people who are familiar with that game. In short, you should always devour every dead opponent once. This is pretty easy to do, since a quick Devour will work just as well as a full-length Devour.
Now, the real complexity is in using Devour as part of combat. When you land a Devour on an Aragami that is still alive, you get two key advantages: you enter Burst mode, and you gain one or more Aragami Bullets.
Burst mode is a huge advantage. Most importantly, it boosts your damage. Being in Burst mode also gives you other new options, such as the ability to double jump. It also enables all equipped skills that have a "B" marker in the skill list, and it also causes your OP gauge (your ammo) to slowly regenerate. To make it simple: you want to be in Burst mode as much as possible. You can tell that you are in Burst mode by the yellow glow that surrounds your character, and the gauge that appears at the bottom of the screen. When that gauge empties, you will exit Burst mode.
Now, this is where the difference between different types of Devour come into play. The charged Devour will give you a full Burst gauge if it hits. On the other hand, a quick Devour will give a third to one-half of a Burst gauge. At the most basic level, they give the same effect, but just give you a different duration. However, if you Devour an opponent while still in Burst mode, you can refill the Burst gauge and extend its duration.
Now, on to Aragami Bullets. When you Devour a living Aragami, you gain Aragami Bullets in addition to the Burst effect. An Aragami Bullet is a type of special bullet that doesn't use your OP gauge, but instead has finite ammo. A charged devour will give you three bullets, while a quick Devour will give you fewer (usually just one). On their own, Aragami Bullets are not that powerful. However, you can use R1+Triangle while in gun mode to fire the Aragami Bullet at your allies. Look for an ally that is marked with a triangular lock-on marker. Aragami Bullets fired with R1+Triangle will home in on that character, and it connects, that ally will gain a "Link Burst".
When an Aragami Bullet is passed to an ally, that ally's Burst gauge is immediately filled. That ally gains all of the normal effects of being in Burst mode, even if they are a character like Sakuya or Kota who can't Devour to gain Burst normally. However, if a character who is already in Burst Mode is passed an Aragami Bullet, something special happens: they Burst levels up to a higher rank. So, they go from a basic level 1 Burst to a level 2 Burst, or from a level 2 Burst to a level 3 Burst. Higher levels of Burst increase all of the stat gains from a Burst. However, if someone in level 3 Burst lets their Burst gauge empty, they immediately drop all the way out of Burst mode and must restart the process of improving Bust level from the beginning. On the plus side, they can still refill their Burst gauge via Devour and receiving passed Aragami Bullets to maintain that level 3 Burst for as long as the team can keep it up.
There is a second benefit to receiving Link Burst: you gain a Condensed Aragami Bullet. Whenever an ally passes Aragami Bullets to you, they don't just disappear. Instead, they become Condensed Bullets. These appear on the UI as text under the Burst gauge, rather than in the ammo listing like normal Aragami Bullets. You can only store one, and it is fired by pressing R1 + Square while in Gun form. It will vanish and be lost if you are passed another Aragami Bullet or your Burst Guage runs out, so it is best to just fire it immediately. Functionally, they work just like normal Aragami Bullets, except they deal much more damage.
So, to summarize it all:
In Blade Form, use Devour by holding the triangle button or hitting R1 + Triangle to build up your Burst Gauge and acquire Aragami Bullets. Devour can only be performed in Blade form.
In Gun form, pass those bullets to allies by hitting R1 + Triangle to raise their Burst level, and fire condensed bullets with R1 + Square when allies pass them to you in order to deal a lot of damage. Both of these action can only be done in Gun form.
Burst benefits both forms equally, and you want to be in Burst as much as possible. Enter and sustain Burst by Devouring foes and receiving passed Aragami bullets.
As a side note, only other New type God Eaters armed with both a blade and gun can pass Aragami Bullets. However, AI allies are very eager to do so, which is exactly why ally New types like Alisa are very useful. You should bring them on missions as much as possible.
And, now that the simple part is done, I'll move on to Predator Styles. This only really starts to matter when the Predator Style menu is unlocked later in the game, but it adds a lot more options and greater depth to the system. There are five kinds of Devour attacks in the game: Charged, Quick, Combo, Step, and Jump. Charged Devours are performed by holding triangle, and are slow and strong. The other four are activated by hitting R1 + Triangle while standing, attacking, step-dashing, or jumping respectively. For each of these five types, you can independently equip different Devour attacks, which do different things. For example, you can change it so that the Step Devour will rocket you forward at high speed and your Combo Devour will pull you away from the enemy to safety. These different options also adjust how much a successful Devour will fill your Burst Gauge and how many Aragami Bullets you will acquire, so there are some trade-offs to be made.
The second main functionality of the Predator Style system is the Control Units. In the original PSP version of this game, Control Units were a normal piece of equipment, right alongside the main parts and the upgrade units. Back then, they provided skills that would activate during Burst. This time around they are similar, but function in a more complex way. Each of the five Devour attack slots can be fitted with its own Control Unit, which determines a special benefit that you will receive when you hit with that particular Devour attack. For example, if you attach the Blaze Resist+ Control Unit to your Quick Devour, then you will gain the Blaze Resist+ buff after hitting an enemy with the Quick Devour attack.
This buff will last until your Burst gauge empties, and it won't stack with itself. However, it will stack with the buffs provided by other equipped Control Units. So, if you hit with a Quick Devour armed with Blaze Resist+, and then follow that up with a Step Devour equipped with Spark Resist+, you will benefit from both Blaze Resist+ and Spark resist+ until your Burst Gauge empties. You can track these by the small colored lines just above the righthand end of the Burst gauge. Each colored line indicates a buff from a different Devour attack (the same colors displayed next to the Devour attacks in the Predator Style menu). In other words, you want to arm each Devour with a different Control Unit, and then hit the enemy with all of your different Devour attacks to stack up a wide range of buffs. By keeping your Burst going, you can keep these buffs up as long as needed, but you will lose them all and have to restart from the beginning if the Burst Gauge empties.
There are also a few Control Units that behave a bit differently. For example, the first two available to you are attack buffs (one for Melee and and one for Ranged attacks), but rather than provide a constant buff, they only last until your next attack. Both the effect and the colored line marking the effect will vanish after a single attack, but can be regained with another successful Devour. These are good if used in combination with particular set-ups (like Blast guns loaded with expensive bullets), but in general I find the long-term buffs to be better.
As a final note, each Devour attack has a certain rank of Control Unit that can be attached to it, ranging from 1 to 3. A slow and simple Devour like the Type One can equip level 3 Control Units, and thus can equip any of them, while some faster and fancier Devours can equip only a level 1 Control Units, and thus are restricted to using only the weakest Control Units. So, you might need to make a trade-off between the Devours you like and the buffs you want.
In the early parts of the game, just focus on trying to land devours and get into Burst mode as much as you can, and try to get into the habit of passing Aragami Bullets to your allies as you get them. Those two actions are really the most important parts of the system. A team where everyone is in Burst mode will do a lot more damage than one where no one is in Burst. I hope this overview is useful to someone, but if you have any other questions, feel free to ask.
The simple answer is: whenever you get interested in messing with it. You don't ever have to mess with Custom Bullets in order to get through the game, but if you want to get involved with the system, there are a lot of simple tweaks to the basic bullets you can make to improve their efficiency. The system exists to let you modify things to match your own playstyle and preferences. If the current bullets work for you, you might never need to mess with them. On the other hand, if you favor really close range shooting, you can always modify your basic assault-type bullets to have less range and thus cost less OP per shot. If you don't like aiming, you can make so simple homing bullets. It can be daunting to really figure out the system and get bullets to work right, so I wouldn't blame anyone for wanting to avoid all of that. However, I think that some of the most significant and useful stuff you can do with the system is the simplest stuff.
Anyone playing Grand Kingdom? It looks right up my alley. I'm trying to hold off and save it for my next trip so i'll have a new handheld to play but my will is wavering.
It's very much a mobile game without the microtransactions. It's not going to be for everyone and you will run out of things to do fairly quickly without the online component. There is a "story" mode, but it's entirely detached from the actual conflict the game is centered on, which is an endless war between four nations.
From the reviews it seems like a pure strategy game with lots going on and barebones as far as story and basically everything else goes. So long as the gameplay is good, that's all I really need in a handheld game. I don't know what you mean by it's a mobile game, though, since there's lots of mobile games with lots of depth and then lots of shitty ones as well.
It's not pure strategy at all, some strategy elements as far as setting up your battle formations and limited AI behavior when sending your extra squads off on their own to run the online component. It has some squad management elements insofar as you can optionally have extra squads sent off to the online war to fight battles for you(against both ai and actual players). You otherwise have one main party you control and run around doing your whatevers with. There's no direct pvp in the game, the online component is mainly about trying to farm as many AI-controlled player teams as you can before a given battle ends. (you have very little direct impact on whether a battle is won or lost online, don't go expecting you'll turn a tide)
There's a heavy online focus with no endpoint and some solo content. The solo content has a story, but once you run through it it's very much just a vehicle to farming materials for better items to equip your squads with so they can do somewhat better in the online component(in the simplest terms, offline is for crafting materials, online is for money farming). After a point, your direct gameplay will only be insofar as the one real group you're playing at the moment, and tweaking/setting up your dispatch parties so they aren't completely bodied by other player teams, and beyond that will not really become much more than daily logon maintenance to get your "daily logon rewards" and send your squads back out to do their own thing.
After you've gotten your item schematics farmed out and the initial story mode completed, it very much just becomes like a mobile game in just how much it is that you consider daily maintenance to be fun. But you at least don't have "gem/coin packs" slamming you in the face as you log on to tell you how much more quickly you could be powering up with this totally kewl premium currencies. (though you do still get to see the nice top 3 leaderboard singing the praises of the heroic dudes who farm sixteen hours a day)
Now, that's not to say I didn't enjoy it before it really hit the mobile maintenance components. Provided you're fine with some grind, you'll definitely get a good 20-30 hours or so of it before you really hit the wall(significantly less if you ignore the online functions, however), but this is very much the kind of game it is and fair warning that you probably are better off just stopping the game once you get to that point.
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FreiA French Prometheus UnboundDeadwoodRegistered Userregular
Anyone playing Grand Kingdom? It looks right up my alley. I'm trying to hold off and save it for my next trip so i'll have a new handheld to play but my will is wavering.
It's very much a mobile game without the microtransactions. It's not going to be for everyone and you will run out of things to do fairly quickly without the online component. There is a "story" mode, but it's entirely detached from the actual conflict the game is centered on, which is an endless war between four nations.
From the reviews it seems like a pure strategy game with lots going on and barebones as far as story and basically everything else goes. So long as the gameplay is good, that's all I really need in a handheld game. I don't know what you mean by it's a mobile game, though, since there's lots of mobile games with lots of depth and then lots of shitty ones as well.
It's not pure strategy at all, some strategy elements as far as setting up your battle formations and limited AI behavior when sending your extra squads off on their own to run the online component. It has some squad management elements insofar as you can optionally have extra squads sent off to the online war to fight battles for you(against both ai and actual players). You otherwise have one main party you control and run around doing your whatevers with. There's no direct pvp in the game, the online component is mainly about trying to farm as many AI-controlled player teams as you can before a given battle ends. (you have very little direct impact on whether a battle is won or lost online, don't go expecting you'll turn a tide)
There's a heavy online focus with no endpoint and some solo content. The solo content has a story, but once you run through it it's very much just a vehicle to farming materials for better items to equip your squads with so they can do somewhat better in the online component(in the simplest terms, offline is for crafting materials, online is for money farming). After a point, your direct gameplay will only be insofar as the one real group you're playing at the moment, and tweaking/setting up your dispatch parties so they aren't completely bodied by other player teams, and beyond that will not really become much more than daily logon maintenance to get your "daily logon rewards" and send your squads back out to do their own thing.
After you've gotten your item schematics farmed out and the initial story mode completed, it very much just becomes like a mobile game in just how much it is that you consider daily maintenance to be fun. But you at least don't have "gem/coin packs" slamming you in the face as you log on to tell you how much more quickly you could be powering up with this totally kewl premium currencies. (though you do still get to see the nice top 3 leaderboard singing the praises of the heroic dudes who farm sixteen hours a day)
Now, that's not to say I didn't enjoy it before it really hit the mobile maintenance components. Provided you're fine with some grind, you'll definitely get a good 20-30 hours or so of it before you really hit the wall(significantly less if you ignore the online functions, however), but this is very much the kind of game it is and fair warning that you probably are better off just stopping the game once you get to that point.
alright, cool, the clarification of how it's mobile-ish is helpful. thanks.
it'll probably be something I pick up later, then, when I need something like it to keep me busy for long flights and etc.
Saying Grand Kingdom is mobile-ish feels a bit unfair, but I get where that notion is coming from. Once the light story is done, it becomes sort of like a rogue-like or other game you play solely for the experience. No real end point, you just play and fight and get stronger and play and fight some more until you get bored of it.
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
Re: God Eater and some details about combat, this was originally posted by SkyOdin on neogaf:
Spoilered for length.
Okay, since it seems to be confusing some people, I will do my best to explain Devouring, Burst, and Aragami Bullets.
Now, the Devour attacks are a key part of God Eater combat, and they have two key uses. When you Devour the remains of a defeated Aragami, you get three random items from that monster's loot table. This is similar to carving in Monster Hunter, for those people who are familiar with that game. In short, you should always devour every dead opponent once. This is pretty easy to do, since a quick Devour will work just as well as a full-length Devour.
Now, the real complexity is in using Devour as part of combat. When you land a Devour on an Aragami that is still alive, you get two key advantages: you enter Burst mode, and you gain one or more Aragami Bullets.
Burst mode is a huge advantage. Most importantly, it boosts your damage. Being in Burst mode also gives you other new options, such as the ability to double jump. It also enables all equipped skills that have a "B" marker in the skill list, and it also causes your OP gauge (your ammo) to slowly regenerate. To make it simple: you want to be in Burst mode as much as possible. You can tell that you are in Burst mode by the yellow glow that surrounds your character, and the gauge that appears at the bottom of the screen. When that gauge empties, you will exit Burst mode.
Now, this is where the difference between different types of Devour come into play. The charged Devour will give you a full Burst gauge if it hits. On the other hand, a quick Devour will give a third to one-half of a Burst gauge. At the most basic level, they give the same effect, but just give you a different duration. However, if you Devour an opponent while still in Burst mode, you can refill the Burst gauge and extend its duration.
Now, on to Aragami Bullets. When you Devour a living Aragami, you gain Aragami Bullets in addition to the Burst effect. An Aragami Bullet is a type of special bullet that doesn't use your OP gauge, but instead has finite ammo. A charged devour will give you three bullets, while a quick Devour will give you fewer (usually just one). On their own, Aragami Bullets are not that powerful. However, you can use R1+Triangle while in gun mode to fire the Aragami Bullet at your allies. Look for an ally that is marked with a triangular lock-on marker. Aragami Bullets fired with R1+Triangle will home in on that character, and it connects, that ally will gain a "Link Burst".
When an Aragami Bullet is passed to an ally, that ally's Burst gauge is immediately filled. That ally gains all of the normal effects of being in Burst mode, even if they are a character like Sakuya or Kota who can't Devour to gain Burst normally. However, if a character who is already in Burst Mode is passed an Aragami Bullet, something special happens: they Burst levels up to a higher rank. So, they go from a basic level 1 Burst to a level 2 Burst, or from a level 2 Burst to a level 3 Burst. Higher levels of Burst increase all of the stat gains from a Burst. However, if someone in level 3 Burst lets their Burst gauge empty, they immediately drop all the way out of Burst mode and must restart the process of improving Bust level from the beginning. On the plus side, they can still refill their Burst gauge via Devour and receiving passed Aragami Bullets to maintain that level 3 Burst for as long as the team can keep it up.
There is a second benefit to receiving Link Burst: you gain a Condensed Aragami Bullet. Whenever an ally passes Aragami Bullets to you, they don't just disappear. Instead, they become Condensed Bullets. These appear on the UI as text under the Burst gauge, rather than in the ammo listing like normal Aragami Bullets. You can only store one, and it is fired by pressing R1 + Square while in Gun form. It will vanish and be lost if you are passed another Aragami Bullet or your Burst Guage runs out, so it is best to just fire it immediately. Functionally, they work just like normal Aragami Bullets, except they deal much more damage.
So, to summarize it all:
In Blade Form, use Devour by holding the triangle button or hitting R1 + Triangle to build up your Burst Gauge and acquire Aragami Bullets. Devour can only be performed in Blade form.
In Gun form, pass those bullets to allies by hitting R1 + Triangle to raise their Burst level, and fire condensed bullets with R1 + Square when allies pass them to you in order to deal a lot of damage. Both of these action can only be done in Gun form.
Burst benefits both forms equally, and you want to be in Burst as much as possible. Enter and sustain Burst by Devouring foes and receiving passed Aragami bullets.
As a side note, only other New type God Eaters armed with both a blade and gun can pass Aragami Bullets. However, AI allies are very eager to do so, which is exactly why ally New types like Alisa are very useful. You should bring them on missions as much as possible.
And, now that the simple part is done, I'll move on to Predator Styles. This only really starts to matter when the Predator Style menu is unlocked later in the game, but it adds a lot more options and greater depth to the system. There are five kinds of Devour attacks in the game: Charged, Quick, Combo, Step, and Jump. Charged Devours are performed by holding triangle, and are slow and strong. The other four are activated by hitting R1 + Triangle while standing, attacking, step-dashing, or jumping respectively. For each of these five types, you can independently equip different Devour attacks, which do different things. For example, you can change it so that the Step Devour will rocket you forward at high speed and your Combo Devour will pull you away from the enemy to safety. These different options also adjust how much a successful Devour will fill your Burst Gauge and how many Aragami Bullets you will acquire, so there are some trade-offs to be made.
The second main functionality of the Predator Style system is the Control Units. In the original PSP version of this game, Control Units were a normal piece of equipment, right alongside the main parts and the upgrade units. Back then, they provided skills that would activate during Burst. This time around they are similar, but function in a more complex way. Each of the five Devour attack slots can be fitted with its own Control Unit, which determines a special benefit that you will receive when you hit with that particular Devour attack. For example, if you attach the Blaze Resist+ Control Unit to your Quick Devour, then you will gain the Blaze Resist+ buff after hitting an enemy with the Quick Devour attack.
This buff will last until your Burst gauge empties, and it won't stack with itself. However, it will stack with the buffs provided by other equipped Control Units. So, if you hit with a Quick Devour armed with Blaze Resist+, and then follow that up with a Step Devour equipped with Spark Resist+, you will benefit from both Blaze Resist+ and Spark resist+ until your Burst Gauge empties. You can track these by the small colored lines just above the righthand end of the Burst gauge. Each colored line indicates a buff from a different Devour attack (the same colors displayed next to the Devour attacks in the Predator Style menu). In other words, you want to arm each Devour with a different Control Unit, and then hit the enemy with all of your different Devour attacks to stack up a wide range of buffs. By keeping your Burst going, you can keep these buffs up as long as needed, but you will lose them all and have to restart from the beginning if the Burst Gauge empties.
There are also a few Control Units that behave a bit differently. For example, the first two available to you are attack buffs (one for Melee and and one for Ranged attacks), but rather than provide a constant buff, they only last until your next attack. Both the effect and the colored line marking the effect will vanish after a single attack, but can be regained with another successful Devour. These are good if used in combination with particular set-ups (like Blast guns loaded with expensive bullets), but in general I find the long-term buffs to be better.
As a final note, each Devour attack has a certain rank of Control Unit that can be attached to it, ranging from 1 to 3. A slow and simple Devour like the Type One can equip level 3 Control Units, and thus can equip any of them, while some faster and fancier Devours can equip only a level 1 Control Units, and thus are restricted to using only the weakest Control Units. So, you might need to make a trade-off between the Devours you like and the buffs you want.
In the early parts of the game, just focus on trying to land devours and get into Burst mode as much as you can, and try to get into the habit of passing Aragami Bullets to your allies as you get them. Those two actions are really the most important parts of the system. A team where everyone is in Burst mode will do a lot more damage than one where no one is in Burst. I hope this overview is useful to someone, but if you have any other questions, feel free to ask.
The simple answer is: whenever you get interested in messing with it. You don't ever have to mess with Custom Bullets in order to get through the game, but if you want to get involved with the system, there are a lot of simple tweaks to the basic bullets you can make to improve their efficiency. The system exists to let you modify things to match your own playstyle and preferences. If the current bullets work for you, you might never need to mess with them. On the other hand, if you favor really close range shooting, you can always modify your basic assault-type bullets to have less range and thus cost less OP per shot. If you don't like aiming, you can make so simple homing bullets. It can be daunting to really figure out the system and get bullets to work right, so I wouldn't blame anyone for wanting to avoid all of that. However, I think that some of the most significant and useful stuff you can do with the system is the simplest stuff.
If MHgen wasnt out Friday this would sell me.
Agreed. I am stoked to play God Eater tonight!
Goodness. that SkyOdin person did a good write up there. *impressed* Especially the control unit stuff which I had coooompleeetely forgot about after the initial set up. (woops!) I'm not very good at giving writing out tips myself, I just kinda do everything by feel.
THAT SAID- If I could add two more short tips --
*Always pass Aragami bullets to Newtypes and Gunners first. Newtypes because they'll return the favor, and gunners because they can actually use the bullets. Regular sword users can go into burst on their own, so you don't have to fret about passing to them too much.
*If you play with someone online and they give you their "card", you can actually copy their in-use bullets into your own game if you access their cards later. I only found this out recently, it's pretty cool! good way to trade bullet recipes.
*If you play with someone online and they give you their "card", you can actually copy their in-use bullets into your own game if you access their cards later. I only found this out recently, it's pretty cool! good way to trade bullet recipes.
Huh, that's good to know. Might have to go idea-hunting.
It was just so ridiculous that I wanted to play it and enjoy the silliness. Sounds like it would have had enough bad puns to amuse me greatly. Oh well.
The difference between a good and bad dungeon crawler is pretty thin
There are straight up porn game dungeon crawlers that are really good!
What makes a god dungeon crawler:
A good battle system.
Some level of customisation.
Well balanced hard fights with a sane difficulty curve.
Characters or character designs that don't suck.
And most importantly dungeons that are fun to explore.
I hope I like the Ratchet and Clank series, because I just bought 4 R&C games for nine bucks.
I'm assuming that's the "Future Quadrilogy" (Tools, Quest, Crack, Nexus)? If so, I think you're in for a treat. I think A Crack in Time in particular is the best game in the series.
Edit: Oh, this is the Vita thread, so I guess it's the original trilogy and Full Frontal. Good games, but the Vita ports leave a lot to be desired.
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Dark Raven XLaugh hard, run fast,be kindRegistered Userregular
Wanna get a physical Vita game for the flight home, looking at the Sly Cooper collection. Anyone got it, is it a decent port? Like closer to the MGS Collection than the Jak and Daxter one?
Yeah I grabbed the R&C collection, read a couple reviews beforehand and a lot of people mention there being some sort of input lag on the first game. I fired it up and the controls definitely "feel" sluggish. I don't know if this was a thing on the original PS2 version (I never played any of the Ratchet and Clank games) but as a test I fired up R&C 3 for a minute and there was a definite difference. The third game's controls were super responsive.
Still though, I'm making my way through the first R&C and I'm having fun. I dig the sort of 3D action/platformer genre, and seeing how this collection performs makes me sad that the Jak and Daxter one is so janky (I'm tempted to pick it up at some point in the future, but only if I can find a retail copy for like $10). I really wish more of the collections would have gone the Metal Gear Solid route and let you buy (or at least download) each game separately to save on space though.
It's funny, I've had Size Matters (the PSP Ratchet and Clank game) for years now on the PSN, I just never bothered to fire it up. I'm pretty sure I got it for free, either during the "three free games" promo when I got my PSP Go or from the "Welcome Back" promo after the PSN was hacked.
Size Matters was not as good as the PSP exclusive Daxter I thought. And neither of those were as good as God of War for action + platforming on PSP. Not the same genre leanings, just for my money, that's the one(s) I'd play.
Daxter was really good. Ready at Dawn actually changed the PSN version so that it would run at 333MHz instead of the 222MHz that the UMD version ran at, which is why the framerate in the PSN version is so smooth. I know everyone gave the PSP a lot of shit because it had so many "sidekick games", but I didn't mind.
I've sorta been playing Chains of Olympus off and on but there is a part of me that wants to get the God of War collection and play that first so I can sorta play them in release order.
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As someone who just in the last few weeks went from a 16gb to a 64gb...it is amazing. It's also a dangerous pathway to spending more money. I have so much room I keep buying things!
Hm? That shouldn't be the case from what I played of the JP version. Maybe Bamco forgot to hit the flag to change the directions for the PS4 version there?
edit: but not as crazy as how obtuse every hunting game subsystem is. How hard is it to drop a handful of useful tutorials into a game?
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OLcAGbXhWIVcl5IziVpG0eKFJS3xi_Sac9kYMkRFvD8/edit?usp=sharing
Most spend too much time on tutoring, really. Monhun even has an entire arena section that teaches each weapon and such. Each new in stage thing has a counter girl or something babbling on for several minutes.
Soul sacrifice had some pretty good tutorials in Delta, I feel, but I don't really recall if the original had the same one. Or the ability to drop in and test stuff out.
I completely missed the flashes/splatter size in monster hunter. I'll definitely have to watch for that!
Would still like something like the MH Arena section, but where you have to perform specific weapon combos in order to walk you through what does/not work. I'm specifically thinking about how I didn't have any idea that I could super cancel on a charge blade in order to store phials as guard+ and dmg+ until I saw it in a gaijinhunter video. Something that completely changed how I played the weapon.
edit: really what it boils down to is I am in love with the core gameplay of hunting games, but am at a loss as to how to how to move past the entry level for any given weapon style/combo without some pretty significant handholding
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OLcAGbXhWIVcl5IziVpG0eKFJS3xi_Sac9kYMkRFvD8/edit?usp=sharing
It's very much a mobile game without the microtransactions. It's not going to be for everyone and you will run out of things to do fairly quickly without the online component. There is a "story" mode, but it's entirely detached from the actual conflict the game is centered on, which is an endless war between four nations.
I dunno about GE, maybe Lovely can point you in the right direction, but MonHun has the Gaijinhunter videos detailing all the weapons and their move sets and quirks. Which holds up between the various games in most instances.
Barring that play online with some people who main weapons you might like and just hang back and watch them. You can learn a lot just from that. Even if you don't particularly understand everything.
You can even set it up so it you ping or something during a fight they can remember what they were doing and you can later ask about something specific. These games are definitely much better if you make it a bit of a social experience. I've spent a few nights with various people in monhun or soul sacrifice teaching people stuff.
Spoilered for length.
Now, the Devour attacks are a key part of God Eater combat, and they have two key uses. When you Devour the remains of a defeated Aragami, you get three random items from that monster's loot table. This is similar to carving in Monster Hunter, for those people who are familiar with that game. In short, you should always devour every dead opponent once. This is pretty easy to do, since a quick Devour will work just as well as a full-length Devour.
Now, the real complexity is in using Devour as part of combat. When you land a Devour on an Aragami that is still alive, you get two key advantages: you enter Burst mode, and you gain one or more Aragami Bullets.
Burst mode is a huge advantage. Most importantly, it boosts your damage. Being in Burst mode also gives you other new options, such as the ability to double jump. It also enables all equipped skills that have a "B" marker in the skill list, and it also causes your OP gauge (your ammo) to slowly regenerate. To make it simple: you want to be in Burst mode as much as possible. You can tell that you are in Burst mode by the yellow glow that surrounds your character, and the gauge that appears at the bottom of the screen. When that gauge empties, you will exit Burst mode.
Now, this is where the difference between different types of Devour come into play. The charged Devour will give you a full Burst gauge if it hits. On the other hand, a quick Devour will give a third to one-half of a Burst gauge. At the most basic level, they give the same effect, but just give you a different duration. However, if you Devour an opponent while still in Burst mode, you can refill the Burst gauge and extend its duration.
Now, on to Aragami Bullets. When you Devour a living Aragami, you gain Aragami Bullets in addition to the Burst effect. An Aragami Bullet is a type of special bullet that doesn't use your OP gauge, but instead has finite ammo. A charged devour will give you three bullets, while a quick Devour will give you fewer (usually just one). On their own, Aragami Bullets are not that powerful. However, you can use R1+Triangle while in gun mode to fire the Aragami Bullet at your allies. Look for an ally that is marked with a triangular lock-on marker. Aragami Bullets fired with R1+Triangle will home in on that character, and it connects, that ally will gain a "Link Burst".
When an Aragami Bullet is passed to an ally, that ally's Burst gauge is immediately filled. That ally gains all of the normal effects of being in Burst mode, even if they are a character like Sakuya or Kota who can't Devour to gain Burst normally. However, if a character who is already in Burst Mode is passed an Aragami Bullet, something special happens: they Burst levels up to a higher rank. So, they go from a basic level 1 Burst to a level 2 Burst, or from a level 2 Burst to a level 3 Burst. Higher levels of Burst increase all of the stat gains from a Burst. However, if someone in level 3 Burst lets their Burst gauge empty, they immediately drop all the way out of Burst mode and must restart the process of improving Bust level from the beginning. On the plus side, they can still refill their Burst gauge via Devour and receiving passed Aragami Bullets to maintain that level 3 Burst for as long as the team can keep it up.
There is a second benefit to receiving Link Burst: you gain a Condensed Aragami Bullet. Whenever an ally passes Aragami Bullets to you, they don't just disappear. Instead, they become Condensed Bullets. These appear on the UI as text under the Burst gauge, rather than in the ammo listing like normal Aragami Bullets. You can only store one, and it is fired by pressing R1 + Square while in Gun form. It will vanish and be lost if you are passed another Aragami Bullet or your Burst Guage runs out, so it is best to just fire it immediately. Functionally, they work just like normal Aragami Bullets, except they deal much more damage.
So, to summarize it all:
In Blade Form, use Devour by holding the triangle button or hitting R1 + Triangle to build up your Burst Gauge and acquire Aragami Bullets. Devour can only be performed in Blade form.
In Gun form, pass those bullets to allies by hitting R1 + Triangle to raise their Burst level, and fire condensed bullets with R1 + Square when allies pass them to you in order to deal a lot of damage. Both of these action can only be done in Gun form.
Burst benefits both forms equally, and you want to be in Burst as much as possible. Enter and sustain Burst by Devouring foes and receiving passed Aragami bullets.
As a side note, only other New type God Eaters armed with both a blade and gun can pass Aragami Bullets. However, AI allies are very eager to do so, which is exactly why ally New types like Alisa are very useful. You should bring them on missions as much as possible.
And, now that the simple part is done, I'll move on to Predator Styles. This only really starts to matter when the Predator Style menu is unlocked later in the game, but it adds a lot more options and greater depth to the system. There are five kinds of Devour attacks in the game: Charged, Quick, Combo, Step, and Jump. Charged Devours are performed by holding triangle, and are slow and strong. The other four are activated by hitting R1 + Triangle while standing, attacking, step-dashing, or jumping respectively. For each of these five types, you can independently equip different Devour attacks, which do different things. For example, you can change it so that the Step Devour will rocket you forward at high speed and your Combo Devour will pull you away from the enemy to safety. These different options also adjust how much a successful Devour will fill your Burst Gauge and how many Aragami Bullets you will acquire, so there are some trade-offs to be made.
The second main functionality of the Predator Style system is the Control Units. In the original PSP version of this game, Control Units were a normal piece of equipment, right alongside the main parts and the upgrade units. Back then, they provided skills that would activate during Burst. This time around they are similar, but function in a more complex way. Each of the five Devour attack slots can be fitted with its own Control Unit, which determines a special benefit that you will receive when you hit with that particular Devour attack. For example, if you attach the Blaze Resist+ Control Unit to your Quick Devour, then you will gain the Blaze Resist+ buff after hitting an enemy with the Quick Devour attack.
This buff will last until your Burst gauge empties, and it won't stack with itself. However, it will stack with the buffs provided by other equipped Control Units. So, if you hit with a Quick Devour armed with Blaze Resist+, and then follow that up with a Step Devour equipped with Spark Resist+, you will benefit from both Blaze Resist+ and Spark resist+ until your Burst Gauge empties. You can track these by the small colored lines just above the righthand end of the Burst gauge. Each colored line indicates a buff from a different Devour attack (the same colors displayed next to the Devour attacks in the Predator Style menu). In other words, you want to arm each Devour with a different Control Unit, and then hit the enemy with all of your different Devour attacks to stack up a wide range of buffs. By keeping your Burst going, you can keep these buffs up as long as needed, but you will lose them all and have to restart from the beginning if the Burst Gauge empties.
There are also a few Control Units that behave a bit differently. For example, the first two available to you are attack buffs (one for Melee and and one for Ranged attacks), but rather than provide a constant buff, they only last until your next attack. Both the effect and the colored line marking the effect will vanish after a single attack, but can be regained with another successful Devour. These are good if used in combination with particular set-ups (like Blast guns loaded with expensive bullets), but in general I find the long-term buffs to be better.
As a final note, each Devour attack has a certain rank of Control Unit that can be attached to it, ranging from 1 to 3. A slow and simple Devour like the Type One can equip level 3 Control Units, and thus can equip any of them, while some faster and fancier Devours can equip only a level 1 Control Units, and thus are restricted to using only the weakest Control Units. So, you might need to make a trade-off between the Devours you like and the buffs you want.
In the early parts of the game, just focus on trying to land devours and get into Burst mode as much as you can, and try to get into the habit of passing Aragami Bullets to your allies as you get them. Those two actions are really the most important parts of the system. A team where everyone is in Burst mode will do a lot more damage than one where no one is in Burst. I hope this overview is useful to someone, but if you have any other questions, feel free to ask.
The simple answer is: whenever you get interested in messing with it. You don't ever have to mess with Custom Bullets in order to get through the game, but if you want to get involved with the system, there are a lot of simple tweaks to the basic bullets you can make to improve their efficiency. The system exists to let you modify things to match your own playstyle and preferences. If the current bullets work for you, you might never need to mess with them. On the other hand, if you favor really close range shooting, you can always modify your basic assault-type bullets to have less range and thus cost less OP per shot. If you don't like aiming, you can make so simple homing bullets. It can be daunting to really figure out the system and get bullets to work right, so I wouldn't blame anyone for wanting to avoid all of that. However, I think that some of the most significant and useful stuff you can do with the system is the simplest stuff.
Maybe it'll come later? I mean, Gal Gun Double Piece is getting localized.
// Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //
From the reviews it seems like a pure strategy game with lots going on and barebones as far as story and basically everything else goes. So long as the gameplay is good, that's all I really need in a handheld game. I don't know what you mean by it's a mobile game, though, since there's lots of mobile games with lots of depth and then lots of shitty ones as well.
Good advice. Thanks!
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OLcAGbXhWIVcl5IziVpG0eKFJS3xi_Sac9kYMkRFvD8/edit?usp=sharing
If MHgen wasnt out Friday this would sell me.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Agreed. I am stoked to play God Eater tonight!
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OLcAGbXhWIVcl5IziVpG0eKFJS3xi_Sac9kYMkRFvD8/edit?usp=sharing
It's not pure strategy at all, some strategy elements as far as setting up your battle formations and limited AI behavior when sending your extra squads off on their own to run the online component. It has some squad management elements insofar as you can optionally have extra squads sent off to the online war to fight battles for you(against both ai and actual players). You otherwise have one main party you control and run around doing your whatevers with. There's no direct pvp in the game, the online component is mainly about trying to farm as many AI-controlled player teams as you can before a given battle ends. (you have very little direct impact on whether a battle is won or lost online, don't go expecting you'll turn a tide)
There's a heavy online focus with no endpoint and some solo content. The solo content has a story, but once you run through it it's very much just a vehicle to farming materials for better items to equip your squads with so they can do somewhat better in the online component(in the simplest terms, offline is for crafting materials, online is for money farming). After a point, your direct gameplay will only be insofar as the one real group you're playing at the moment, and tweaking/setting up your dispatch parties so they aren't completely bodied by other player teams, and beyond that will not really become much more than daily logon maintenance to get your "daily logon rewards" and send your squads back out to do their own thing.
After you've gotten your item schematics farmed out and the initial story mode completed, it very much just becomes like a mobile game in just how much it is that you consider daily maintenance to be fun. But you at least don't have "gem/coin packs" slamming you in the face as you log on to tell you how much more quickly you could be powering up with this totally kewl premium currencies. (though you do still get to see the nice top 3 leaderboard singing the praises of the heroic dudes who farm sixteen hours a day)
Now, that's not to say I didn't enjoy it before it really hit the mobile maintenance components. Provided you're fine with some grind, you'll definitely get a good 20-30 hours or so of it before you really hit the wall(significantly less if you ignore the online functions, however), but this is very much the kind of game it is and fair warning that you probably are better off just stopping the game once you get to that point.
alright, cool, the clarification of how it's mobile-ish is helpful. thanks.
it'll probably be something I pick up later, then, when I need something like it to keep me busy for long flights and etc.
Goodness. that SkyOdin person did a good write up there. *impressed* Especially the control unit stuff which I had coooompleeetely forgot about after the initial set up. (woops!) I'm not very good at giving writing out tips myself, I just kinda do everything by feel.
THAT SAID- If I could add two more short tips --
*Always pass Aragami bullets to Newtypes and Gunners first. Newtypes because they'll return the favor, and gunners because they can actually use the bullets. Regular sword users can go into burst on their own, so you don't have to fret about passing to them too much.
*If you play with someone online and they give you their "card", you can actually copy their in-use bullets into your own game if you access their cards later. I only found this out recently, it's pretty cool! good way to trade bullet recipes.
Huh, that's good to know. Might have to go idea-hunting.
I'm still waiting for that one boob-obsessed dungeon crawler. Unless it already snuck over...
Edit: Omega Labyrinth. And no, looks like it came out in Japan almost a year ago, and still nothing here.
There are straight up porn game dungeon crawlers that are really good!
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What makes a god dungeon crawler:
A good battle system.
Some level of customisation.
Well balanced hard fights with a sane difficulty curve.
Characters or character designs that don't suck.
And most importantly dungeons that are fun to explore.
// Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //
Meant for the PSN thread?
That's a hell of a review statement.
"Verdict: Buy this game if you’ve forgotten how to feel pain."
I'm assuming that's the "Future Quadrilogy" (Tools, Quest, Crack, Nexus)? If so, I think you're in for a treat. I think A Crack in Time in particular is the best game in the series.
Edit: Oh, this is the Vita thread, so I guess it's the original trilogy and Full Frontal. Good games, but the Vita ports leave a lot to be desired.
Still though, I'm making my way through the first R&C and I'm having fun. I dig the sort of 3D action/platformer genre, and seeing how this collection performs makes me sad that the Jak and Daxter one is so janky (I'm tempted to pick it up at some point in the future, but only if I can find a retail copy for like $10). I really wish more of the collections would have gone the Metal Gear Solid route and let you buy (or at least download) each game separately to save on space though.
It's funny, I've had Size Matters (the PSP Ratchet and Clank game) for years now on the PSN, I just never bothered to fire it up. I'm pretty sure I got it for free, either during the "three free games" promo when I got my PSP Go or from the "Welcome Back" promo after the PSN was hacked.
I've sorta been playing Chains of Olympus off and on but there is a part of me that wants to get the God of War collection and play that first so I can sorta play them in release order.